Yeah, I can see that. Changing things that have previously been established is always going to be harder to accept than developing something new. The bigger the change, the greater the pushback. And when some of those changes clash with your fanbases' deeply held personal beliefs, then watch out, because they will take those changes as personal attacks on themselves.
THAC0 made sense to everyone I played with. Simple arithmetic.
Where are you getting your impression of Thaco from? From the same kind of personal experience from which mine comes? Internet memes? Why am I supposed to assume the truth of what you're claiming?
In business, the word is values, and that a product should align itself with it's primary consumers values to appeal to them. D&D has done that successfully. At the same time people getting their values from corporate America is sort of ugh. Ultimately the pushback has been for a small, yet vocal segment, not unusual as it's a specialty product, with a lot of brand identification. Hasbro WOTC was essentially right to ignore them though, too small of a segment to be focused on vs getting new customers.
I was reading Usenet boards when alt.tsr.dnd was active. I read Dragon magazine letter sections though the 90s. I've been active on Enworld since 2003 and was lurking since Eric Noah was running a spoiler page. I have lurked on Dragonsfoot, was a member of my local college gaming society and spent an untold amount of my youth in game stores. Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Micah. I was there when it was written.
